ANYTHING 4 PROFIT (ANYTHING FOR PROFIT) (19 page)

              That was Mike’s reality up until the age of eleven, when he began to have frequent run-ins with the law. After numerous arrests for petty crimes, a judge sentenced Mike to spend the rest of his adolescence in the Greenville Group Home in West Greenville. He was to remain there until the age of eighteen.

              The group home wasn’t any different than a regular foster home to Mike. As far as he was concerned, it was the same shit, but just a different toilet that needed to be flushed. There were just a lot more castaways that nobody wanted bunched up under the same roof.     

              One day when Mike was fourteen, and high as a cloud from some good weed he’d smoked with his roommate Stutter Bug, he decided to walk up the road to the Cash and Carry convenience store to buy some snacks. He needed to silence the stomach rumbling caused by the good trees he’d just finished burning.

              Once he got to the store, a group of teens pulled a knife on him, and tried to rob him for his brand new pair of Air Jordan’s, and the little bit of cash he had in his pockets.

              There were four of them against just him, but Mike was like “fuck it, let’s get it poppin’!” The thought of running had never even crossed his mind. It just wasn’t in him to run from a problem. He’d rather run towards it.

    Just as Mike was about to steal on the kid holding the knife, a boy and a girl who very closely resembled each other walked out of the store and asked him what was going on. When Mike explained what was going down, the boy spoke up.

    “Man, y’all ain’t finna jump this man. If y’all wanna fight him, then give him a one on one. Y’all ain’t fixin’ to jump him like that.”

              The kids argued back and forth for a second, until the short stocky one who was holding the knife got tired of all the tongue wrestling. He took a swing at Mike with the knife. Mike sensed it coming, and jumped back to avoid the blade. He staggered off balance in the process.

    Once he regained his balance, Mike hit dude with a flurry of punches that were so swift, the short stocky nigga’s only option was to try to scoop Mike. He went under Mike, grabbed his legs and took him on a Six Flags ride through the air until his body slammed onto the ground. Once he was on the ground, the other kids tried to stomp Mike’s face into the concrete. And that’s when all hell broke loose.

              The young girl who had come out of the store pulled a glass juice bottle out of her bag, and hit one of the kids in the face with it. His head split open, and the wound spurted blood. The boy screamed out in pain. The other two boys ran up on her, but the boy standing beside her, who happened to be her twin brother, started throwing haymakers at them. He was trying to knock their asses out!

    His sister joined in again, swinging the glass bottle wildly, until it connected with somebody else’s head. The melee went on for a few minutes, until the proprietor of the Cash and Carry called the police.

              Once the police car pulled up to the scene, the group of youths immediately took off and scattered. The four who had started it ran in one direction, while Mike and the two siblings who’d helped him ran in the other. They headed down a side road.

              After running until their chests were heaving from the physical exertion, Mike and the two twins slowed down and began walking at a normal pace. After catching his breath, Mike said, “Man, y’all ain’t even had to do that. I was straight. I could’a handled that shit…”

             “I can’t tell,” said the girl, laughing.

              Mike laughed too. “But on some real shit, I appreciate y’all gettin’ down wit’ a nigga like that, fa’ real.”

             “Ain’t nothin’, dog,” said the boy. “I hate it when niggas be tryna put it down on muh’fuckas for no reason. And most of them niggas be pussy anyway.”

             “What y’all names is anyway?” asked Mike.

             “My name’s Ant D. This here is my twin sister, Meka,” he said, pointing towards the girl on his left.

             “Nigga, I can talk,” said Meka sarcastically, as she playfully punched her brother in the arm. “What’s your name?”

             “Mike,” he replied. “We gonna have to change your name though,” he said to Meka jokingly.

             “Change my name? Nigga, you trippin’. Change my name fo’ what?”

             “Because the way you was swinging that fuckin’ bottle, a muh’fucka might have to start calling yo’ ass Mrs. Barry Bonds, or some shit.”

             “Oh my God, that was lame! Was that supposed to be a joke? Because if it was, that shit was real corny,” said Meka.

    All three of them started laughing. From that day forth, the three of them were inseparable. At the age of fifteen, Mike ran away from the group home and began living with Ant D and Meka at their mama’s house in The District…

              The sound of Dr. Baker’s voice interrupted Mike’s reflection on the past, and brought him back to the harsh reality of the present. Somebody had tried to kill his adopted sister, and now she was in a hospital bed fighting for her life.

    “Excuse me, sir. I hate to interrupt, but visiting hours are over…”

    Mike looked at Meka for another second, and then silently turned and walked out of the room. He vowed to himself that whoever was responsible for that shit wouldn’t just die, but they would suffer.

Chapter 20

    Back downstairs in the waiting area, Ant D and Mike discussed the situation and contemplated their next move. Gloria was in the gift shop buying flowers and get-well-soon balloons to decorate Meka’s room with. A few of Meka’s homegirls had come through to show their support after they got the word about what had happened to her.

             “Who you think did this bullshit? You think it had somethin’ to do with Twan? Or just some crazy ass niggas that don’t wanna live too much longer tryna get a rep?” Mike asked quietly, doing his best to not be overheard by the other people in the waiting room.

             “Come on, Mike. Me and you both know that in these streets ain’t no such thing as a muh’fuckin’ coincidence. Everybody and they mama knew that Meka was Twan’s main girl. He turns up dead, and not even two days later, Meka out at the mall shopping like she just hit the lotto.”

             “Yeah, yeah, I know. I tried to tell her ass shit was too hot for her to be going out buyin’ up shit like that. That nigga’s body - or what was left of it - wasn’t even in the fuckin’ urn good before she copped that Range,” Mike said, frustrated.

             “Shit, we both tried to get her ass to fall back, but you know how my sister do when her mind is set on somethin’. Ain’t nothin’ finna stop her ‘til that shit gets done. And niggas ain’t fuckin’ slow. It don’t take no muh’fuckin’ rocket scientist to add all that shit up.”

             “Shit still don’t make no sense though, Ant. If niggas know what went down, then why they ain’t tried to get at
us
? It ain’t like we been hard to find these last few days.”

             “That’s the thing, Mike. Whoever them coward ass niggas was that did this shit probably ain’t really sure what the fuck went down. But they figured Meka had to have something to do with it, so they snatched her up and tried to get her to put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together for ‘em.”

             “And knowing Meka’s crazy ass, she probably bucked on them niggas!” Mike said, chuckling.

             “That’s off top. You know my sis a muh’fuckin’ soldier, dog.”

             “So how we gonna find these dudes?”

             “Oh, that shit ain’t gon’ be too hard, my nigga. You know these niggas out here can’t hold no water. Especially if the price right, like Bob Barker.”

             “What you mean?”

              Ant D scratched his chin for a second, lost in thought. After a few moments of contemplation, he said, “I’m thinkin’ like this here. After all the money we blew these past few weeks, we should still be sittin’ on ‘bout three and some change, right? I guarantee you if we put a hundred stacks out there for word on who was behind this shit, somebody gon’ sing like fuckin’ Usher, or one of them other R&B niggas.”

             “That sounds like a good idea. I’m wit’ it. And if Meka comes outta that coma before we hear somethin’, then she can tell us what went down herself. Either way, once we find out what’s what, we finna turn this bitch into Iraq!!” Mike was amped up at finally having a course of action to take. Retaliation was a must. Revenge was like the sweetest joy…next to getting pussy.

             “In the meantime, we need to go ‘head and find some artillery.”

             “Shiiiiiiit, you know I got the chopper fully loaded in the truck right now.”

             “That ain’t gonna be enough though, Mike. I’m talkin’ ‘bout really serving these niggas. What’s up wit that nigga you got that AR from? He got some mo’ shit like that?”

             “Stutter Bug? Damn right. I don’t know how he be doin’ it, but that nigga keep some heavy shit on deck. I think he got a plug out there in Fort Jackson, the military base in Columbia.”

             “Call that nigga up and see what’s ‘hood. Tell him we gon’ need that heavy shit. AK’s, AR’s, vests - the whole throw. If we goin’ to war, then ain’t no point in playing wit’ these fuck niggas.”

             “I’m wit’ you on that, homey. I’m finna go to the payphone outside and call his ass now. I ain’t tryna use my cell for no shit like that. I just heard that the fuckin’ feds done trapped Man Man off for talkin’ reckless on his cell.”

             “Yeah, I heard ‘bout that shit too. Them crackers gettin’ advanced with that slick technology shit, ain’t they?”

              Mike walked outside and stopped at the first payphone that wasn’t occupied. He dropped four quarters into it, and dialed Stutter Bug’s home phone number. He lived down in Columbia, AKA the Metro.

              Mike had met Stutter Bug back at the Greenville Group Home when they were both teens. Stutter Bug’s whole family was turned out on everything from crack to heroin, so he had been in the streets since he was small, just like Mike. They had automatically clicked when they met, despite Bug’s speech impediment. The two of them would often buy weed and then smoke out in their room together, blowing each other shotguns from the blunts.

              After doing about six months at the group home, Bug was sent back to Columbia to live with a relative who said they’d take him in. But before he left, he gave Mike his people’s number and told him that if he was ever in the Met to get in touch with him, so he could show him how live his city was.

              A few years later, Mike decided to see what Bug was up to, and called him. Stutter Bug was staying in a notorious housing project called Saxon Homes. Mike went through and chilled down there in the Metro for a few days. He spent his time there getting high, going to clubs like Columbia Live and The Palace, and fucking them Metro bitches.

              On the day Mike was getting ready to leave, Stutter Bug called him into the kitchen of his apartment in Saxon Homes, and showed him a crate full of machine guns, bullets, pistols, and all other types of weaponry. He told Mike this was his new hustle, and that if he ever needed some guns to holla at him, and he’d make sure he got a good deal. So anytime Mike needed some good shit that wasn’t hot, he got with Bug and they did business.

             The phone rang five times before it was answered. “Hello?”

             “Bug, it’s me nigga, Mike. What’s happenin’?!”

             “Oh sh-shit! What’s up my n-n-n-n-nigga? What’s g-g-good?”